All posts in Event Planning

Hosting a marketing event is an excellent way to interact with customers, expand your audience, build brand awareness and increase sales.

According to the Event Marketing 2018: Benchmarks and Trendsreport, most marketers believe that events are the single most effective marketing channel compared to digital advertising, email marketing, and content marketing.

Now, your company has pulled off the perfect marketing event. The venue was perfect, the speakers were engaging, the exhibits were just what was called for. And, the attendee traffic indicated a high level of interest.

Yet, Monday morning, back at the office, the real work starts: following- up after the event. In order to maximize the impact of your event, you need to have a strategy to follow-up with attendees, stakeholders and prospects after the event.

Here are some post-event strategies you can follow to help you convert prospects into buyers and leave a positive and lasting impression on your event and business.

1. Plan your post-event strategy when you begin to plan your event

Planning an event and hosting it is time-consuming and demanding. If you don’t plan your follow-up strategy beforehand, chances are there will be at best, very poor follow-up and at worst, very little or no follow-up.

Scheduling who will do what to reach out to prospects after the event will ensure that the job gets done. Assign tasks to specific staff members.

This may sound obvious, and it is, but you might be shocked to learn that according to the Event Marketing 2018: Benchmarks and Trends report, a staggering 80% of trade show exhibitors don’t follow up with their show leads. (Tweet this!) Can you imagine the vast amount of money left on the table?

In preparation for your follow-up strategy, plan to complete a lead qualification form after speaking with prospects. This is vital information that you will capture to qualify leads and save lots of time when it comes to following up with prospects after the event.

2. That all important follow-up email

Start planning your follow-up emails before the event, including when they will be sent. Your follow-up email is an important aspect of your event strategy – it’s a crucial step in achieving the goals set out for the event, be it increasing sales, creating brand awareness or expanding your customer base.

Make sure your post-event email stands out. Keep in mind that your prospect will most likely have several emails to respond to after being absent from the office. A subject line like “Follow-up” is going to get you nowhere.

Be very clear and specific on why you’re following up.

Consider that sending an email on the day after the event might not be the best timing, in some instances – an exhausted traveler from out-of-town might not be in the mood to look at emails first thing when they arrive back – consider giving it a day or two before you make your approach.

During the event, make notes on visitors’ business cards so you can remember the conversation and refer to it in your email, giving your email a personal touch.

Keep this first email simple: say who you are, where you met and most importantly, why you making contact is important to them. Keep it short and to the point.

3. Exploit the full potential of social media

Social media can help you to connect with your prospects, share your message and help to leave a positive and lasting impression of your event.You have been sharing news about the event on your social media accounts. Don’t stop after the event. Continue sharing your message.

Make a short video that shows how the event went. Have snippets of people talking about the event and how it benefited them. Make sure it contains your company message. Post this on your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Encourage your audience to keep tweeting and using your event hashtag to continue the digital buzz around your event.

Stay active on Instagram. When you plan your Instagram schedule for your event, include the days and weeks after the event. This social media platform is ideal for promoting your event and engaging your audience in a fun and visual way.

Use social media platforms to thank attendees, participants, speakers and industry representatives – these kinds of posts are popular and are usually shared immediately, extending the positive impact of your event.

4. Approach prospects with a tangible asset

One of the most effective ways to follow-up with prospects after an event is to have something to offer that adds value for them. Consider segmenting your prospects into different categories with different offers for each segment.

Following up with a tangible asset like an industry-relevant report, ebook, whitepaper or the like will enhance the business value for prospects and establish your company as a thought leader in the industry.

Didn’t have the time or the resources to send out a survey and create an industry report? What about an intangible gesture? The value you add could be as simple as a referral to a business partner in your network that you know would benefit your prospect.

Never lose sight of the fact that a marketing event is a relationship building tool. Following up with prospects after the event is a crucial part of that strategy.

5. Be sure to measure event marketing success

How you will measure ROI (return on investment) is determined when you decide what the goals are for your event. In fact, without having a way to determine event success, the whole exercise would be pointless.

Be clear about what your primary goal is for the event. Do you want to build brand awareness, launch a new product, increase customers or generate qualified leads?

The next step is to set some specific metrics for each goal. For instance, if your primary goal was to build awareness, you could set a goal of 5,000 attendees and 1,000 social media mentions.

If your goal was to attract more customers, you need to establish how many of the qualified leads actually culminated in closed deals.

If your goal was to build stronger relationships with your stakeholders, you could leverage surveys to determine attendee satisfaction and event involvement, taking into account the buzz that was created on social media. These factors should disclose whether you succeeded in your goal.

Bottom line: the best way to determine whether your marketing event will achieve the desired return on your investment, is setting S.M.A.R.T. goals – that is goals that are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and timely. (Tweet this!)

Summary

These five strategies form the framework for the proper conclusion to your marketing event. Following them also guarantees that you can measure whether the event achieved its goal.

Planning and executing your post-event strategy is as important as planning and executing the event itself. If you fail to implement a follow-up strategy, your event may essentially be a waste of valuable time, effort, money and other resources.
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Executive Events is ready to help you plan the perfect follow-up strategy.Contact us today to chat about how to get the most out of events for your business.

When it’s time to plan a marketing event for your business, which is the more cost-effective option; hiring an outside event manager or using your internal marketing team?

Your first instinct might be to choose the internal marketing team. After all, you’re already paying their salary so there’s no need to hire someone else. But not so fast.

Using your internal team can cost you money in the long run. Sure, the up-front cost will be absorbed in payroll, but your ROI is likely to suffer. Here’s why.

The benefit of focus

First, let’s assume your marketing team is like every other marketing team on the planet. They’re busy managing multiple complex projects with competing timelines. If you task them with coordinating an event, they’ll be handling the details in between fielding sales team emails, writing a script for the radio ad, and setting up a content calendar for the next three months.

Meanwhile, an outside event manager is focused on your event. She takes the detail work off the shoulders of the marketing team but still collaborates with them on the big picture marketing goals.

While your in-house marketers are generalists, your event manager is a specialist. All of her energy and talent goes into a meticulously planned event that surpasses your goals.

Expertise and proven connections

Everyone has heard the axiom, practice makes perfect. While your in-house team might organize one or two events a year, an event planning professional has dozens or even hundreds of successful events under her belt. She knows what works and what doesn’t and brings you the benefit of her expertise.

Experienced event planners know where costs can be cut without skimping on quality. They use their expertise to make sure every dollar you spend gives you the highest possible return on investment.

In addition to her expert knowledge, she comes prepared with a roster of vendors, venues, caterers and other service providers who can make sure your event goes off without a hitch. She knows the best in the business and will bring them in where they can be most effective for your event. Sometimes she can even turn those preexisting relationships into discounts or special deals for you.

Event Managers keep an eye on the trends

Sure, your marketing team might know all about the latest trends in inbound marketing or how to use big data, but do they have their finger on the pulse of the event industry? Do they know what the next hot trend is and how to best capitalize on it for your business? Probably not.

A professional event planner makes it her job to know where the industry is going and what is likely to work in the future. She’ll make sure that your event exceeds attendee expectations by delivering the latest and greatest the industry has to offer.

That translates to a better overall attendee experience. Attendees walk away more engaged, better informed, and more likely to buy.

If you’re ready to get higher ROI for your event by working with a professional event manager, contact Deany Dormer at 757-785-5081.

Marketing your business through an event is a wonderful way for you to showcase your company in a unique way. Whether it’s promoting your company directly or celebrating a business achievement an event is the perfect place for networking and obtaining future customers. Putting on the right type of event can offer potential customers a relaxed and comfortable buying environment rather than a high pressured sales meeting. Like we always say at Executive Events, an event can take the place of a first sales call. With event marketing you are able to meet new people, build real-life relationships and create a lasting impact, therefore, creating the perfect place to generate new leads that will eventually become paying customers.

Here are 5 great ways you can generate leads at your next marketing event:

1. Stop Being a Salesperson

The purpose of the event is to ultimately obtain new customers, so you will eventually need to make the sales pitch – but don’t be too eager to do so. Take the time to have a genuine conversation with each person you meet. Ask them questions and get to know them. This will make them feel more comfortable, and will make it easier for you to pitch the sale once you know what’s most important to them and how you can help.

2. Plan Ahead

Depending on the size of the event, it may be challenging to have a conversation with every potential customer. So, before the event, make a list of all the people to whom you want to talk. Whether they’re complete strangers, or you have met them previously, know who your top prospects are and what they look like. Especially if you have only reached out to them through email, telephone or another virtual platform. An event is the perfect place to formally introduce yourself and establish that relationship. If you have a team, make sure each team member knows your divide and conquer plan.

3. Manage Your Time and Set a Goal

Managing your time at the event is crucial. Talking to one person for a lengthy amount of time, or taking too much time to approach someone you want to talk to, can be detrimental to your game plan. Set a goal of the number of people you want to talk to in order to keep yourself in check. If you plan on talking to twenty people, but you’re in the middle of a conversation with only an hour left, don’t be afraid to excuse yourself. Be aware if a conversation is going nowhere, or if the person has no interest in talking to you, so you can use your time more wisely.

4. Talk to Strangers

While it’s smart to know who you want to talk to beforehand, you should also approach people you don’t already know. Walk up to a stranger, or ask a mutual friend to introduce you. That person will appreciate the friendly gesture, and the interaction may benefit you in the long run. Especially if you have already talked to your top prospects, reaching out to new people will only generate more leads.

5. Follow Up

After networking and taking the time to make so many new connections, you want to be sure your efforts were not in vain. It is imperative to get every single person’s contact information so you can get in touch with them in the future. Even if you only chat briefly, ask for their card or contact information so you can continue the conversation if you feel they are a good prospect. If there are people you especially want to pursue, send them a handwritten note or invite them to coffee to get to know them better.

Overall, make sure you are inviting the right people to your event so your chances of turning attendees into customers is as high as possible. Know beforehand who your perfect customer is so you know them when you see them. Have a conversation and listen to their needs to discover exactly how your product or service can help them. And always have a follow-up plan. Create your strategy for lead generation as you are planning your event for the best results possible. Happy lead generating!

There’s nothing like the anxiety of sending out that first invite blast. It’s like asking several hundred people out on a date all at once (and they don’t even have to reject you to your face).

So how do you avoid being ghosted by your entire guest list? There are plenty of party planning softwares out there to help ensure that your next invitation looks clean, professional, and definitely gets your guests excited for your event. Check out some of these proven tips for getting that coveted RSVP.

Congratulations! You’ve decided to do an event for your business. Events are a great way to promote your company directly to your target audience. These experiences are all about building relationships – the holy grail of marketing in the 21st century! Relationships secure customer’s loyalty. Sales funnels are shortened and brand awareness skyrockets.

Here are four quick tips to help increase the effectiveness of your next event:

You may want to get sophisticated with a website that enables online registration, email reminders to registrants and email blasts to prospective attendees, but event marketing is all about getting the word out.

No matter what size event, there is no shortage of tools to help you realize that goal. It could be a quarter-page or even full-page ad in the newspaper or even a multi-page brochure.

Providing accurate information to the attendees is one of the main ingredients to success. Other marketing ideas like direct mail, email marketing, blog marketing, event sponsorship etc. can be appropriate and effective.

Events do not end with the departure of the last guest. Post event analysis, or more popularly known as event evaluation, is a basic step that organizers need to adhere to in order to quantify the event and identify any scope for future improvement. The aim is to distinguish the mistakes and learn from them. The evaluation process is the answer to queries on whether you have been successful in achieving your goals or was your message properly conveyed to the target audience. Today, there are various Cloud-based software products which come with tools that ease the process of event evaluation for organizers.

Almost every company organizes events to promote their products and services. These events play an important role in helping companies grow their business effectively. With the advancements in technology and growing expectations of attendees, events have gone mobile. Attendees now appreciate getting all the required event information at their fingertips. On one hand where these apps have made it truly convenient for attendees to participate in events, on the other hand, sponsors have found a great platform in these apps to reach their target audience.